This month for Science Club we explored plants. It sounds like a perfect theme for spring, but outside there isn't much coming to life yet. We managed with lots of seed activities, maple sugaring, a microscope, some store-bought flowers, and plant collages.

First, here's a link to the basic format for Science Club. It explains how we generally plan and run things.

Described below are activities families brought for our theme.

Kids guessed which seeds would grow into which plants. There's a mini bag with seeds in it stapled behind the seed packets, so kids can check if they made a correct match.

Inside these boxes are pine cones, pine needles, and acorns for kids to feel and guess.

Here's a display showing how we use flowers in herbal teas and for eating.

Going along with the herbal teas and edible flowers, here is a project where kids could use leaves and flower petals to color a fabric hanging.

We viewed prepared plant slides through a microscope.

Kids could observe bean sprouts and were welcomed to start their own in a plastic bag with a paper towel.

We counted flower petals and learned about the mathematical patterns found throughout nature (called Fibonacci Numbers).

We learned about maple trees and how to make maple syrup (and what leaves and seeds are and aren't from maples shown in the pic above). We sampled maple syrup candy.

And finally, we had an art table where kids could make a plant collage.